It's 2016. And you know what that means? The Wii U is officially dead! Because who cares if the console already has a somewhat respectable library and still has at least some upcoming releases? Nintendo's gonna reveal the NX soon, and that means the Wii U is no longer relevant and we can finally dig it a shallow grave so we can do this song and dance all over again with the NX. Now, obviously, that was sarcasm. But the point still stands. We're at the cusp of a new generation here. There are even rumors that the NX might be shown off for the first time at this year's CES, albeit behind closed doors. And that starts tomorrow! With that in mind, instead of the usual “Most Anticipated Games of”, I decided to whip up a quick wish list for the NX. Keep in mind, these are more what I hope happens with the NX, not necessarily what I think will happen with the NX. I'm trying to keep these dreams at least somewhat grounded. Trying, not always succeeding. But, here we go!

-Traditional Controller-

I'm not a fan of the Wii U's GamePad, as you may know. In the past, I've referred to it as “unnecessary”, “clunky”, and all manner of negative adjectives. The Wii U Pro Controller, on the other hand, might just be my preferred controller for the generation. Not that I have much experience with the PS4 or Xbone's pad, but the Pro Controller's whopping battery life is quite the selling point, to say the least. So, for the NX, can we just have the Pro Controller be the main controller, please? I've seen the patents Nintendo has issued for a touchscreen controller with virtual buttons, and that's a terrifying prospect to consider. So, don't do that, Nintendo. Just keep it simple. Make a traditional controller and focus more on innovating with your software, not hardware.

Just use this.

-Third Party Support-

This has been a sore spot for Nintendo for decades now. Ever since the GameCube, Nintendo consoles have been missing out on more and more major third party releases. I don't care how powerful the NX may be compared to the PS4 or Xbone. So long as it at least gets all the multiplatform games, I'll be happy with it.

-Decent Sized Hard Drive-

Launching the Wii U with a mere 32 gigs in 2012 was really shortsighted of Nintendo. If you downloaded games at all, you'd need to pick up an external hard drive to store them all. Hopefully, they won't repeat that mistake with the NX, and have a more respectable figure right out of the box, at least one terabyte. This is especially crucial if Nintendo is going to cut corners by taking out the disc drive and making the NX all digital.

-Backwards Compatibility-

I'm not quite as hung up on this as some people. But it's a nice feature to have regardless, even if only for the convenience of not having to hook up an older console to play an older game. At least, we should at least be able to bring over our digital Wii U software, right? Speaking of which...

-Fully Featured Virtual Console-

All the classics from all of Nintendo's past consoles all available on the NX's digital storefront. NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U. They should all be on there. Heck, throw a few handheld games in there for good measure. Third party licensing may be an issue for some games, so just get as many as possible. I just want the VC to finally live up to its potential.

-Bayonetta 3-

I realize Bayonetta 2 may not have sold enough to merit a sequel, but, then again, neither did the first game. And yet, Nintendo was still willing to throw some of its massive cash hoard around to make it happen. And I would be so, so happy if they were to do it again. I just want more Bayonetta, darn it!

-Metroid Prime 4-

You know it, and I know it. It's been too damn long since we last had a good a Metroid game. And some crappy looking 3DS multiplayer spin-off with a soccer minigame of all things isn't gonna cut it. I want awe-inspiring alien locales to explore, new power-ups to uncover, secrets to find, lore to learn, and enemies to face. Come on, Retro. We know you've been working on something. And after all these years, it'd better not be another Donkey Kong sidescroller.

-Zelda Wii U...but on NX-

I still think Zelda Wii U is gonna come to the NX as well as the current gen platform. And while the port alone wouldn't be enough to convince me to buy an NX, if I do get one, I wouldn't say “no” to playing the newest Zelda in the 1080p/60fps goodness that the more powerful hardware could ideally handle.

-Splatoon 2-

Or Spla2n, if you want to think you're clever. Why do I want a sequel to Splatoon when the original game has already done a good job of expanding on itself? Well, aside from the possibility of being able to play it with a decent controller, I want a good single player campaign. There wasn't anything technically wrong with Splatone's single player mode, but I think Yahtzee hit the nail on the head when he said the slower, precision platforming didn't mesh well with fast-paced chaotic shooting experienced in the multiplayer. If they can bring that kind of action to a single player environment, I'd dare say we'd be in for quite a treat.

-Super Mario Galaxy 3-

Take the Galaxy games, expand Mario's moveset with the moves that were removed from previous entries, open up the levels a bit to allow for more exploration, allow players to collect more than one star in one go a la Banjo Kazooie, make some crazy new levels, add another godlike orchestral soundtrack courtesy of Koji Kondo, and, viola! Guaranteed system seller. Bonus points if you remake the first two Galaxy games in HD with a traditional control scheme. Further bonus points if you bundle those with the third game in one convenient package.

-Kid Icarus Uprising 2-

Kid Icarus Uprising was a really fun little title marred by awful controls that could be mostly attributed to the constraints of the 3DS's inputs. Putting it on a console with a dual-stick controller would iron out that major flaw. And I don't want to live in a world where we don't see more of Pit, Pittoo, Palutena, Viridi, Phosphora, Magnus, Lady Gaol, and Hades (He survived, right? Just a little bit. Enough to taunt you after the end credits) for another twenty-five years.

-Console Exclusive Monster Hunter-

Speaking of games being constrained by being squeezed into a portable environment. It's a shame that Monster Hunter is pretty much limited to handheld consoles these days, because I think there's still plenty of room for the games to expand. The environments could be larger, and not be broken up into sections that only break the flow of the hunt. We could have even bigger monsters than we have now. And at a better frame rate too. And we can capture, tame, and ride monsters! Wouldn't that be awesome?! Aw, who am I kidding? I'd probably just take an NX port of Monster Hunter X at this point. I'd just much rather play Monster Hunter on a console than a handheld.

-The Last Story 2-

Remember how The Last Story was gonna be a sci-fi game before it went fantasy? Yeah, I'll take that, please.

-Nintendo Kart-

What I mean here is that you take Mario Kart and put characters and tracks from other Nintendo properties outside of Mario. You could have Samus, Fox, and Captain Falcon racing around in little karts themed after their respective vehicles. I've had this idea for a track based on Metroid Prime. You start out in Tallon Overworld, then drive through into Chozo Ruins, down to Magmoor Caverns, then up again to Phendrana Drifts where you'll be accosted by Sheegoths, until you reach the Phazon Mines, then you get to the Impact Crater, and at the finishing line the Metroid Prime is waiting for you and you have to avoid its attacks. Adding in these new characters and race tracks would be a great way to spice up the Mario Kart series with some fresh faces. At least they'd be more interesting than Metal Peach. And, hey, we've already seen the start of this with the Mario Kart 8 DLC.

Just take it a step further.

-Shadow of the Eternals-

Remember Shadow of the Eternals? That crowd funded project that was supposed to be a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness developed by some of the guys who used to work on it? Apparently, in spite of two failed crowd funding campaigns, the game's still getting made. But it's been so long since we've heard anything about it, I'm beginning to get a little worried. Could the title have been moved to NX? I guess we'll just have to wait to find out.

-New IPs-

Perhaps most importantly, though, I want to see something that we haven't seen before. As much as I want to see sequels to games I love, I want to see Nintendo step outside their comfort zone and do things that aren't parts of pre-established franchises just as much. Splatoon was a good start, but there needs to be more of its ilk. Games that feel special and unique, that are trying completely new things. Those kinds of games would really get me pumped for the NX.

You may notice something a bit different about the year end awards ceremony this year: it's not the usual Top 5. While 2015 may have had its fair share of noteworthy games, few of them seemed to be hitting Nintendo's platforms. Much to my chagrin, I had to miss out on games like Witcher 3, Batman Arkham Knight, Fallout 4, or pretty much any other AAA multiplatform game you can name, for better and for worse. This isn't anything new, but, for whatever reason, Nintendo's stable of releases this year failed to resonate with me, making the lack of third party support all the more poignant. Then Zelda got delayed, and I've already spoken enough on that. The few titles that did release on Nintendo devices in 2015 were underwhelming, with only few exceptions. And I'm not about to let the year go by without giving these exemplary games their due. Keep in mind, these games won't be listed in any particular order. This isn't so much a ranking as it is a laundry list of games I genuinely enjoyed throughout the year.

Bladefinger's Game of the Year Awards 2015

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)

As much as I may rail on Nintendo's lacking third party support, at least the 3DS has made a few modest strides in that area, and the Monster Hunter series is the best example of that. With it being such a huge success in Japan, and even carving a respectable niche in the West, it's safe to say that Monster Hunter might be one of the flagship titles for the system, right alongside first party giants like Pokemon or Mario. Monster Hunter 4 was the latest release we Westerners were able to get our hands on.

After putting about 100 hours into it, I haven't seen everything in this game. It's still throwing completely new monsters at me, even after I've kicked the main monster's butt multiple times and carved it up into a fancy suit of armor and complimentary Great Sword. And that's not even taking into account the months-worth of free DLC Capcom's been dishing out since launch. Suffice to say, Monster Hunter 4 will be lasting me a long, long time.

Splatoon (Wii U)

Splatoon's a bit of an odd choice. I'm more of the single-player type. And while Splatoon may have had a single player campaign, that's not why it's on this list. No, what cemented Splatoon's place as one of my top games of the year was the multiplayer. Some of the most fun moments I've had this year were spent playing this game. I remember leaving the beta sessions feeling especially giddy. That's just the type of game Splatoon is: it's just plain fun. Throwing paint around then swimming swiftly through it has such a good sense of flow to it. It's a fresh, new idea in an industry that's starved for gameplay innovation.

And isn't it refreshing for one of the year's most notable games to be a completely new IP, from Nintendo no less. Goes to show they don't need to keep shoving Mario down our throats to remain relevant. If they can come up with something unique, engaging, and well-polished, like Splatoon, while throwing enough advertising money at it, perhaps there's hope for Nintendo after all.

The slim amount of content was definitely a sticking point for the game when it launched. Since then, however, Nintendo has been doing their best to fix that issue. We've had a few new game types, new maps to play in, new weapons to use, and new clothing options for our squiddy avatars to wear. By the way, Nintendo, I'm still waiting to play as an Octoling! And while you're at it, could you patch in Pro Controller support, so we can have two players going online together on the same system or use the superior controller when alone? And get rid of the obnoxious two map limit? And allow us to change our weapon load-out in the lobby? Since all this DLC is free, I've been coming back to Splatoon quite a bit over the year, and I almost always have a good time.

I know this is the Dojo, but you can't screengrab an online multiplayer match, so this'll have to do.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D ( 3DS)

I may not have been a fan of some of the changes Grezzo made to Majora's Mask. Still, they had a long way to go before they completely screwed it over. And I'd say this version is still a worthy successor to the N64 original, if for no other reason than the substantial graphical upgrade and control enhancements. Either way, Majora's Mask remains one heck of a game.

If there's one thing that Nintendo should take away from it when making Zelda Wii U, it's this: Scale is all well and good, but not the be-all-end-all that determines a game's quality. You can put all the effort you want into making the biggest, most expansive world of any video game, but it's all for naught if you don't fill it with meaningful content. It needs to have more than completing a lot of empty fetchquests for cardboard NPCs to collect meaningless rewards.

It's the little details that matter most.

It may be the smallest 3D Zelda game to date. It may have the fewest dungeons. It may have had the fewest new assets and the least development time. And yet, to this day, no Zelda game has had a world so deep, complex, and engrossing; characters so likable and believable; and a sense of atmosphere so well crafted as Majora's Mask. I'd dare say, if Zelda Wii U can match that level of quality with its current scale and ambition, we may well have one of the greatest games ever made to look forward to next year. Or whenever it comes out.

Steamworld Heist (3DS, Wii U, PS4, Vita, Xbox One, PC)

Here's a bit of a late entry, but one no less relevant. Steamworld Heist released earlier this month, which means it missed a lot of Game of the Year discussions. See, this is why I hold off til the very end of the year. You never know when something good may pop up.

The name may sound familiar to those who played 2013's Steamworld Dig, and for good reason. It's a sort of sequel to that game, only it takes place in space, as opposed to the wild west, with an entirely new batch of steambots. And it's a turn based strategy game. I haven't had the chance to review it yet, since I have yet to finish it, but I'm far enough in that I can feel safe in saying that this is one 2015 game you do not want to miss.

Unfortunately, it's only on 3DS at this point, but it will be coming to all the major gaming platforms eventually. And when it does, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

The tale of the Wii U is a tragic one. A tale of hubris and oversized touchscreen controllers. But there was one character that permeated its stage, providing a beacon of light in the darkness, hope for the future. And, no, I'm not talking about Zelda Wii U this time. I'm talking about Xenoblade Chronicles X. I still remember the moment it was announced. The anticipation was palpable. Years have passed since then. Many games have come out for Wii U. Some good. Some bad. A few were even great. But nothing seemed to change the fact that the Wii U was a dying system. It wasn't selling, third party support was drying up to nothing, and Nintendo seemed incapable of providing it with a consistent schedule of releases. In spite of all the doom and gloom, there was always the promise of Xenoblade Chronicles X on the horizon. You know what, I'm just gonna call it Xenoblade from now on.

I may not have been the biggest fan of the first Xenoblade back in the day. But, I have to admit, I'm struck with oddly fond memories of it. The spectacular world, the visuals, the story, the cheesy voice acting that made it sound like an 80-hour long British comedy. What I'm trying to get out there is, in spite of all the flack of I give it, Xenoblade the first is a pretty good game. So that's why I was so hopeful I could take to the rooftops and sing the sequel's praises for all to hear. I still wish I could do that. But I can't.

After all these years, I can't say I'm not extremely disappointed with Monolith Soft's recent effort. I don't know why they even called it “Xenoblade”. There's no Monado that I could find, and any swords wielded by the various alien races weren't of particular plot importance. Instead of taking place on the corpses of titanic deities, the new Xenoblade takes place on the uncharted alien planet of Mira. A war between two alien races destroys Earth, leaving the last surviving remnants of humanity adrift in space. Months after crash landing on Mira, you're awoken from stasis by Elma, an agent of BLADE, the organization dedicated to rebuilding human civilization. Before long, you too are tasked with that lofty goal. And it won't be easy. Mira is a hostile world, filled with savage creatures. Worse, one of the warring alien factions that led to the destruction of Earth has taken up residence on Mira as well, and they're intent on finishing the job. So, it falls to you to mine Mira's resources, fend off frisky wildlife, defend the last bastion of humanity from its enemies, and locate the stasis pod that holds the other survivors.

So, we've got more of a sandbox set-up going on here. The first Xenoblade was an open world, sure, but there was a set order you had to go through as you made your way through the game. After all, you couldn't start at the Bionis's feet and go directly to its head. You had to up its leg, torso, along the back. In the sequel, that isn't the case. The whole world is opened up to you, allowing you to go pretty much anywhere. And it's hard not to be amazed by the scope of this game. The environments are expansive, trumping even other modern sandboxes in terms of size. Each is filled with flora and fauna, from small bugs to massive dinosaurs that dwarf the player in their immensity. And it looks and runs fairly well too, even if it is capped at 30 fps and had a few instances of textures popping in. You'd better have some space on your Wii U hard drive, though. Otherwise, you'll have to deal with worse load times.

Sadly, the immensity of the world is only skin deep. Sure, it's big, but there's so little to do in it. Basically, it's just one mad dash between point A and point B, with little of the side content and secrets to uncover that makes a good sandbox. Sure, there are a few secret areas, but they're almost always filled with overleveled monsters that you don't stand a chance against, so you're better off avoiding these areas like the plague. And even should you dare to venture into one and aren't immediately mashed into monster meal, there's very little reward for your risk. There aren't any meaningful items to find, I mean. The best gear is usually found in shop or by completing quests, with any bits found in the overworld being of no more use than a little extra cash. The multitude of random collectibles you find aren't good for much either, only being used as side quest objectives.

Speaking of sidequests, Xenoblade has a few of those, but they're almost always repetitive fetch quests. The affinity missions usually have more meat to them with a bit of background plot, but even those devolve into “go here, kill x amount of monster y, collect x amounts of useless collectible z, and return to me for some back story”. The main campaign is a bit better. It keeps introducing us to new alien factions and characters. It's still muddled with plot problems, though. For instance, one of main goals of BLADE is to find the Lifehold, the giant stasis pod that hides the stash of human survivors. Once, during my travels in between main missions, I found the Lifehold, or at least a part of it, sticking out of the water off the coast of the starting area. Naturally, I swam up to it. But, nothing happened. See, even though the Lifehold is so important, clearly it's not “so important” that the game would actually let us find it until the appointed time, which kinda ruins the point of a sandbox, doesn't it? Allowing the player to go off the beaten path and discover things at their own pace. But here I was swimming against this supposedly vital point, and the game refused to acknowledge it. It couldn't even hide behind the thin veil of the characters mistaking it for alien tech at the time. It had the U.S. flag with the words “UNITED STATES” written underneath it, in English. To be fair, I tried to find it later, to jokingly point it out to a friend, but I couldn't find it. So, either I have faulty memory or it was just a glitch and I wasted a paragraph's-wort of your time.

As if that would excuse the terrible writing. The characters are bland and unremarkable, not aided in the slightest by their atrocious facial animations. I may be donning nostalgia goggles here, but I seem to remember the characters in the first Xenoblade having better facial animation than the glass-eyed mannequins on display here, who talk by flapping their jaws like sock poppets. This might sound like a nitpick, considering how sore a point faces are for video game animation, but does it not boggle anyone else's mind that characters rendered on a Wii are somehow more expressive than those rendered on the Wii U? Oh sure, they look better, being in HD, but that'll be of little comfort when the uncanny valley hits you like a locomotive.

They may as well be robots. Well, and this is going into spoiler territory, so those of you who aren't otherwise aware of where I'm taking this, you may want to skip this entire paragraph.

They are. Turns out, all the active humans in the story are actually robots being lived through vicariously by humans kept in stasis in the Lifehold. The idea is that no one wanted to spend their years in space, only to die before they found a new planet to colonize nor did they want to be stuck in stasis, so they built these robots to live through instead, getting the best of both worlds. It's a fairly well executed twist. It certainly caught me by surprise. Its reveal is appropriately dramatic, and it can slightly explain how the characters get revived after an in-game death. But, it doesn't really change much, narratively. Finding the Lifehold was already a fairly big deal, regardless of the personal stake any of the characters had in it. I mean it has presumably thousands, if not millions, of human beings kept inside it. In the following chapter, there are these Miran beasts that attack any living things, and they make a big deal of how they wouldn't harm any of the player characters, since they aren't actually alive. But that gets shot in the foot when Tatsu shows up. Tatsu is a Nopon, one of the annoying rabbit-like persons from the first game, because reasons. Anyway, Tatsu is a living thing. Which means the monsters in the area would attack him, so we're stuck with a boss fight regardless of what was set up. So, what was the point of this twist, anyway? Beats me. And another thing: at one point, someone mentions that food rations are running low, but why would that be a problem if everyone is a robot? I know they're trying to live normal lives, but a food shortage still wouldn't be a problem since they're all mechanical. Come to think of it, only a few Earthlings were allowed onto the escaping spaceships, presumably due to capacity limits on the ships themselves. With that in mind, those who got on the ship filled it with lifeless robots, instead of more refugees, just so they wouldn't be forced to spend their years in space “living” the opening scene to Alien. Seriously, that's pretty fucked up. And even if the entirety of those who made it on the ship were vital personnel needed to man the ship, wouldn't it make more sense to just have them to lump it and live out their days spacing doing their job so they could fit more actual human beings on board in the stasis pods? So, the twist doesn't really stand up too well, and I assume it was thrown in there more for cheap shock value than any actual narrative merit.

Full disclosure, I haven't actually finished Xenoblade. I have more worthy games I've yet to play through, and I was getting absolutely fed up with Xenoblade's bullshit. Remember the bad writing? Turns out, it's repetitive too. There's one joke with the characters talking about eating Rikki-I mean, Tatsu that gets run into the ground right about the first time it's used, and just keeps getting repeated ad nauseam long after that. Because Tatsu looks like a potato. Humor, right? And then there's the dinner scenes that precede every main mission. You pick what kind of food you'd like to see virtually recreated in game, one of the characters congratulates you in your meaningless decision, makes the food, runs the Tatsu-looks-like-food joke a bit further into the ground, all so the characters can presumably eat the meal. I dunno, the screen just fades to black and the plate is empty. They could've just as easily thrown it all in the trash for all we know. Or care. Maybe this is like Monster Hunter, and the meal is bestowing stat bonuses from the upcoming mission, but the game never tells you this, so who cares? It's just pointless, annoying filler in a game that's already bursting with the stuff.

And why is it you can only access main missions after completing “optional” objectives, like surveying a certain percentage of an area, finishing certain side quests, or whatever. These things that were supposed to be optional are getting shoved down our throat for no good reason. It'd be like if Wind Waker kept you from entering any of the dungeons until you'd completed the Triforce shard hunt before each one.

So, any improvements? Well, combat, a bit. Being able to switch between long range and melee weapons is nice. It makes battles a little more dynamic, giving you more control over how your character acts in battle, short of yelling out moves for them to perform like they're a Pokemon. Do you have them go in close and be more at risk for drawing an enemy's aggro, or do you pull away and fire at a distance to lose aggro? Your AI partners will also call out certain types of moves they want you to pull off, and you get a bonus for doing so. Still, it doesn't fix my overall problems with the combat system, the lack of control. I don't know why you're allowed to move around in combat. You can't manually dodge an attack, even if you put a mile between you and the attacker. The only reason in-combat movement seems to exist is to allow attacking an enemy from the side or back for bonuses on certain moves, and that could've been easily recreated in a turn based format anyway, while opening up way more strategic options by allowing you to directly control the entire party. And have I mentioned how much I hate auto attacks? There should never be a moment when my character is just standing there, holding his sword up like an idiot, as opposed to using it for its intended purpose. If you're going to make this an action RPG, fine! Let us do some actions, for heaven's sake. Give us a manual attack button. The Last Story had this down back in 2012. Otherwise, just make it a turn based RPG. Don't just haphazardly marry the two.

In spite of all my complaints, there is one thing that could have redeemed Xenoblade Chronicles X for me: the mechs, or skells, as they're referred to in game. They were a huge selling point, and one of the main reasons I was so excited for this game in the first place. But the game forces you to go through so much tedious busywork to unlock them. I understand not giving one to you right at the get-go, but even after you've made your way through the campaign to the point where you're allowed to use them, you have to complete a tediously long, multi-layered fetch quest. I nearly gave up before finishing it, it was so bad. But, I worked my way through it and finally got my skell.

It's the big things in life you truly treasure.

And it was worth it. Skells are such a cool addition to the game. Moving in one has the inherent appeal of stomping around in a giant robot. They can transform into a wheeled vehicle for blisteringly fast overworld traversal, turning smaller enemies into roadkill as you drive over them. They have ridiculously overpowered weapons. And there are different kinds of frames with their own unique attributes. And you can customize them with personal color schemes. It was awesome!

That is until I decided to tackle one of the affinity missions needed to unlock the next story quest. Everything was going smoothly at first. I completed the objectives, going here and there like a well-trained Labrador. Then I came to a cutscene establishing that I had to fight a bunch of lvl 15 grunt enemies. Now, keep in mind this was a scripted story sequence, not a random encounter. “No problem.” I think to myself, “My skell and I will make short work of these pests.” Which we proceed to do when, out of absolutely nowhere, my skell explodes. No warning. No chance to evacuate it to save it from destruction. It just blows up. Now, the most probable explanation was that a high-powered enemy, far exceeding even my skell in power, to the point where it managed to reduce it to rubble in a single blow, just wandered into the fray with no prior warning or fanfare. DURING A SCRIPTED COMBAT SEQUENCE THAT IS COMPLETELY NECESSARY TO ADVANCE THE STORY. Thanks, Xenoblade. I couldn't be sure, though. I died almost immediately afterwords, and I didn't see any such foe. It could also have been a glitch, as if that excuses it any.

True, you do have skell insurance that gives you a few freebies before you have to pay out of pocket to repair a damaged skell. But that doesn't change the fact that this game is cheap. It constantly pulls these overpowered enemies out of its ass, without giving the player any warning. Since there's absolutely no way of beating them at your current level, your only option is run away and hope RNG has the monster targeting your character last of all your party.

Even assuming the game were properly balanced, there's little else to it to keep me invested. The story may sound interesting, but its populated by the blandest, least likable characters ever created. The world is beautiful, but it's needlessly difficult to explore, with all the overpowered enemies wandering around, and, worse yet, there's little reason to explore it all in the first place, short of mere sightseeing. And that's what Xenoblade is. It's pure spectacle. It's little more than following a dotted line to the next set piece. It has its moments, sure, but they're all buried beneath layers upon layers of tedious fetchquesting. And should you dare go off the beaten path to organically explore for a bit, chances are you'll be flattened by a giant monkey in a second. It's pretty to look at, but take a peak beneath the set dressing, you'll find that the beauty is only skin deep. And then the monkey punches you.

At last, it's time! After years of waiting, I've finally had my chance to play Shadow of the Colossus. Back in my Nintendo fanboy days, this particular Playstation game always mystified me. And it's not hard to see why. The clue's in the title after all. Aside from that, there's all the praise surrounding its story, visuals, and technical achievements that made this one of my most anticipated games to dig into when I got my PS3.

I wonder why...

So, how did it hold up to the lofty expectations I've been building up for it all these years? I'm happy to say that, even now, Shadow of the Colossus definitely holds up. I'd expect nothing less from developers who take nearly an entire console generation to develop a single game.

So, our story is that some young wanderer takes his dead lady friend to a desolate wilderness to visit an imprisoned demon who he hopes can bring her back to life. The demon agrees to help him, but only if he can slay sixteen colossi that dwell nearby. I like this set up, because, while it is vague, it allows the player to fill the gaps however they please, while also having enough details to intrigue them. If you like to keep things simple and traditional, you can just assume the wanderer is trying to revive his dead lover. Or perhaps you'd rather imagine that the wanderer is actually the girl's killer, and is now trying to atone for his misdeed.

Either way, it doesn't get in the way of the stellar gameplay, most notably, the epic battles against the titular colossi. Each colossus must have had a great deal of work put into them. Beautifully animated, richly detailed with fur, rock, and bits of architecture, and each with their own unique design and combat mechanics. They're the stars of the game, without a doubt.

In a way, they're designed more like puzzles than the larger- than-life boss encounters you'd have in any other game. The wanderer doesn't have an extensive list of combos, nor will he have to perform any split-second dodging. The colossi themselves aren't terribly aggressive. They don't attack very often, and when they do, it's usually with wide, cumbersome strikes that can be avoided easily. Rather, the challenge comes in figuring out how to get on to the colossus and climb on its body to reach a weak point. Once you've figured out how to get on a colossus, you have to stay on as the beast tries to throw you off. This is where the grip gauge comes into play. As you hold on to a thrashing colossus, the gauge will deplete. Should it empty, you'll be flung off and forced to start the process over again. After you've successfully navigated your way up the colossus's anatomy to its glowing weak spot, you'll have to stab it repeatedly to finish it off. But these aren't quick pokes, mind you. You have to charge them up to deal damage, all the while the colossus is throwing its weight around and your grip gauge is starting to run dry. It's nothing short of exhilarating, and taking down a colossus feels like a monumental achievement in its own right.

But, at the same time there's also a sense of melancholy with each victory. The colossus aren't really villains. They aren't hurting anyone; they aren't plotting any diabolical schemes of world domination. The music that plays on their defeat isn't triumphant, it's mournful. You're killing a wondrous creature that will never grace the earth again. And the ominous black tendrils that come winding out of their dead bodies and shoot into the wanderer's, slowly corrupting him, give the impression that maybe we aren't doing the right thing in following the demon's lead. Don't you just love it when games make you question your actions?

The game's structure might be where Shadow of the Colossus may lose a few players. While its focus is on the colossus battles, that's certainly not all there is to it. Before you can fight a colossus, you have to get to it first. And that means riding across a mostly empty wasteland. There are no common enemies, no dungeons, no NPCs to interact with. Pretty much the only thing to do is make a pit stop at the odd altar to save your game or hunt lizards to increase your grip gauge. Which, incidentally, doesn't make a great deal of sense. Some may become fed up with galloping across open plains to get to the meat of the game.

However, I'm not one of those people who believes a game needs to be nonstop action all the time, with enemies, traps, and interactables strewn every five feet. The sandbox Shadow of the Colossus puts us in serves a very important purpose, that would have been lost had Team Ico gone for a more straightforward approach. It provides contrast between the colossi battles. After the bombastic music and the thrilling spectacle, it's nice that the game allows you to just sit back, relax, and peacefully ride a horse through its beautiful landscape, before going at it again. If the game had been entirely boss battles, with the overworld removed, I'd daresay it wouldn't have been quite so effective. Speaking for myself, I actually found a great deal of pleasure in going off the beaten path to explore that overworld even further than the game required, even if all it had to offer were scenic vistas.

Like this one!

Furthermore, it makes the game, as a whole, feel more cohesive. Once a colossus is felled, a shaft of light shoots up to the sky from its downed form. As you ride across the deserted land, you can always see these light pillars reminding you of the awesome wonders you've overcome. You can even go back to it and admire its remains. I think it would have been cool if you could fight the colossi in any order, or even see them striding across the landscape as you run up to engage them. Then again, this was a PS2 game, so there had to be some limitations. Which is why I'd like to see something like this made for current gen hardware. Not a remake or sequel, per se, but something the employs the same principles.

Speaking of horses, remember how at the VGA's last year, Aonuma and Miyamoto were presenting that Zelda Wii U footage and they talked about how Epona exhibited artificial intelligence and wouldn't run into trees? Turns out, Shadow of the Colossus was doing that a decade earlier. I'm not knocking Zelda Wii U, because this a feature I actually quite like. Sure, it makes controlling the horse, Agro, a little awkward. But, that's kind of the point. You aren't controlling the horse, you're riding it. It's an independent entity. And it was nice to navigate winding paths without running into walls or trees all the time on my part due to greater momentum, with the horse striding around them on its own. It felt like I was actually riding something, as opposed to using a glorified dash button.

It has a fair bit of extra content, too. After finishing the game, you unlock a time attack mode in new game+ that lets you fight any colossus you want right from the starting sanctuary. It's nice for those who might not have been so enthralled with the overworld as I was. There's also a hard mode and several fun trophies to work towards.

Shadow of the Colossus is an amazing game, but you already knew all that. It's been ten years since it first wowed gamers back on the PS2, and it hasn't aged badly in the slightest, aside from a few, minor visual hiccups. It's a classic, in every sense of the word, and I'm so glad I finally had a chance to play it for myself.

What's this? Bladefinger reviewing a Playstation game?! When, up until this point, he's covered Nintendo games almost exclusively?!

Fret not, dear reader. You're in no danger of being assaulted by a horde of flying pigs...yet. It's just that I've been looking to branch out for a while now. Many years, in fact. And with Nintendo's release schedule drying up to near nothingness this holiday season, I've finally had the perfect opportunity to purchase my first Nontendo piece of gaming hardware: a 20 GB Playstation 3. Why the PS3 you ask? Well, the PS4 may very well be in my future, but, at the moment, it's a little out of my price range. Meanwhile, the PS3 is much cheaper and has a much more robust library. Plus, it can play PS1 and PS2 games, allowing me to catch up on about two decade's worth of Playstation history. And what better place to start than with the one Playstation game that has intrigued me the most over the years: Shadow of the Colossus?

Well, its predecessor, Ico, I guess. Since I went with the HD collection, starting with the second game would've felt a little weird. Looks like Shadow of the Colossus is gonna have to wait for a later day, kids. So, I've spent the past few days playing through Ico, which was, appropriately enough, developed by Team Ico. Ico is about Ico. That's Ico the boy, mind you, not Ico the video game or Ico the Japanese video game developer who developed Ico the game about Ico the boy. Can't see how this could get confusing. He's brought to the castle to be sacrificed because he has horns on his heads. Before the sacrifice can be carried out, he breaks free of his confinement and teams up with a mysterious girl, named Yorda.

If you have any sort of experience with most video games, you may have several warning sirens blaring in your head with that last sentence, because it correctly denotes that Ico is one long escort quest, one of the cardinal sins of game design. But turn off those warning signs, and let me tell you that Ico takes a nuanced and thoughtful approach to the escort quest that elevates it above the simple gimmick used in an attempt to add some brief variety.

Speaking strictly in terms of gameplay, whenever enemies get involved, they themselves are of little threat to Ico. Since there's no health bar, the worst an enemy can to do to Ico is knock him down, leaving him lying prone for a bit. Instead, Yorda is the goal of any confrontation. Ico must protect her, fending off any enemies. And if any do happen to grab her, they have to carry her off to their black hole spawn point and slowly drag her into it, giving the player ample time to run over and pull her right back out again. So, combat, in general, is rather forgiving, if a but frustrating. The combat mechanics are so threadbare, the enemy roster so limited to a handful of hazy foes, and you're so often forced into a combat situations it leaves this aspect feeling repetitive. I'm not saying Ico needs to become Bayonetta, or anything. Still, adding in a little more variety or lowering the number of combat encounters would have helped immensely.

But it's in the little details where the relationship between Ico and Yorda really shines. The way the two of them hold hands as Ico leads Yorda through the confines of the castle. Or when they sit down together on a bench to save the game. Since they don't speak the same language, their interactions are based entirely on what they do, not what they say. The game doesn't rely on dialog to define how Ico and Yorda relate, and instead opts to show us, and, indeed, partake in a lot of it. I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who, like the me of a few days ago, haven't played this game to completion, but the ending was especially powerful and meaningful. And Team Ico managed all of that with just a few words.

Special mention must be made of Ico's castle, which could almost be considered a character unto itself. A sprawling, interconnected fortress brimming with atmosphere. Some of the best moments of the game were spent gazing at the scenery and seeing how the castle grounds looped back on itself. There's not much music, but the ambiance is superb. The inner castle areas are haunted by droning wind and outer areas are pleasantly graced with birdsong. And what little music there is is equally commendable. Seriously, “You Were There” might just be one of my favorite pieces of video game music ever composed.

And it'd be remiss of me to not touch on the art direction. This was one of the early games to hit the PS2, and while it may not be the most obviously technically impressive game, what with environments being mostly empty and the castle being segmented into loading screens, there's no denying that Ico is a joy to look at. I said before that Ico wasn't “the most obviously technically impressive game”, it still used the PS2's then-advanced capabilities in more subtle ways than flooding the environment with NPCs. The use of lighting, animation tricks, and improved AI make it clear that moving this game from the PS1 was the best idea.

All this talk, and I haven't really touched on what kind of game Ico really is. The Wikipedia page lists it as a puzzle platformer/action adventure, and that seems to be a fair classification. There's definitely a lot of puzzling to be done as you make your way through the castle. These puzzles have two sides to them. Two sides that work their way back to Ico and Yorda. Most of Ico's puzzles first involve getting Ico to where he needs to be. The second part involves clearing a path for Yorda, so she can follow. There's a smattering of platforming as well, but it's a troublesome smattering. The camera generally does a good job of framing the action, but occasionally, that won't be the case, resulting in a cheap Game Over when Ico falls to his death. You can't rotate the camera to get a better view; you can only pan it around.

Ico is the poster child for minimalistic design. It eschews many common video game conventions. There's no high score, no power-ups, no RPG elements, no sweeping character archs, no online multiplayer. Its mechanics are simple and streamlined. Not a single bit of it feels like wasted space or padding. Even the combat, which I somewhat criticized earlier, still serves an important purpose. In the end, it manages to do more with what little it has than most games do with every square foot of their inflated terrain. It takes a story as simple and rote as a young boy rescuing a girl from the clutches of evil, and manages to turn it into something special, something meaningful and memorable. And that's not sorcery; it's just good game design.